5 Reasons You Should Add Texting to Your Recruitment Strategy

Few carriers these days take advantage of text messages in their recruitment strategy. Smartphones and text messaging go hand in hand, and developing a strategy incorporating both is crucial to reaching untapped candidates and setting yourself apart from other employers. Here are the five biggest reasons you need to implement texting in your recruitment strategies today.

1. People are glued to their mobile phones

The average person checks his or her phone over 150 times a day, and 91% of people polled report that they always have their phone within arm’s reach. Since 99% of people who have mobile phones also have text messaging plans, your messages are going to be right there in front of your candidates every time they check their phone.

“Around 67% of Americans today have smartphones”

2. It’s a personalized approach to recruiting

Texting these days is the preferred method of communication for candidates between the ages of 18 and 44 years old, and that increasingly includes business communication. Only 32% of candidates consider it unprofessional to text, and the majority of those who find it unprofessional are 45 or older. For most candidates, texting is preferable, because it eliminates the hassle of playing phone tag and allows your recruiters and clients to respond quickly as soon as they receive a message. From your candidate’s point of view, a well-crafted text message can also add a personal touch to your recruitment strategy. A professional, targeted text conveys a genuine interest that many people probably find lacking in most mass emails they receive. By doing your homework on what demographic you’re appealing to with each job recruitment cycle, you can target your younger candidate pool more effectively with text messages. Just remember to stick to texting during business hours, keep the messages professional and to the point, and provide an easy way for them to follow up.

3. It’s faster and more effective than email

You may have heard that the average response time for emails is about two minutes, but the reality is that initially starting a conversation over email can take hours or days before your candidate begins to actively respond. In fact, the odds of any given email being read is only about 23%. Text messages, on the other hand, have a whopping 98% open rate, and 90% of people read their text messages within three minutes of receiving them. So it should come as no surprise that 90% of recruiters who have implemented texting in their recruitment found that using texting speeds up the process considerably.

4. 75% of your candidate pool can’t respond to calls

The reality is that 75% of people currently employed are considering a job change. These people looking for other options make up the majority of your candidate pool, and most of them probably can’t respond to your recruiter’s calls because they’re still at work during business hours. Texting allows for an unobtrusive option to communicate with these candidates who would otherwise be unable to respond and get them to do so faster.

5. Texting presents a unique opportunity for seamless follow-up

Around 67% of Americans today have smartphones, and almost 20% use their smartphones as their primary way to access the Internet. This allows recruiters to incorporate texting into a seamless transition from initial communication to completed application and progression in the recruitment process. The mobile web is a platform that most smartphone users are already comfortable with. 43% of your candidates have used their smartphones to look up job information in the past, and 18% of them have already used their smartphones to apply for jobs. If you provide an easy mobile recruiting experience, you have a better chance of recruiting more applicants. Make sure you have a short, easy to type email address, as well as a mobile-optimized career website. Have your recruiters finish every text communication with a link to both. Once your candidate receives a text, he or she can immediately take action to respond and move forward in the recruitment process.

(Bonus) One tap from text to online application

If your candidate uses Driver Pulse, they can go from your text message directly to your online app with one tap.

Comments 7

If an applicant could use Driver Pulse without the ability to see the status of their application , the other tools in drivers pulse like receiving texts messages from us then it might be something of interest.

As it is now it is all or nothing and we choose not to allow applicants to automatically see the status of their application when we make a status change.

Hello Joe! Texting and status change events are mutually exclusive. If you set your “Share Status Events” set to “No” in your Pulse Control tool, this will not affect applicants’ ability to send and receive texts through the Pulse app.

Does Tenstreet offer the ability to send and receive text messages to driver candidates’ cell phones? If yes, from a legal perspective, do you have to have a signed release to send a text message to a candidate?

Great question, Jim! Once you are set up with texting capabilities, and your subject has opted in, you can send text messages directly to the driver’s phone from the Xpress dashboard. Additionally, if the driver uses the Pulse app, they can send and receive texts in real-time using the app’s simple interface. To handle the legal requirements, we add an ‘opt-in’ question to your application for new subjects applying, and existing subjects can opt in as well by texting a number we provide. It’s that simple.

Hello Patricia! We recommend including the phone number via the Phone App tool when you are adding a subject. If this doesn’t fully address your question, please contact your Account Manager for more personalized assistance.

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